and that is different…there are more than 20,000 titles there just in the fiction section.

The difference mostly has to do with licensing, which in turn is based on copyright.

Just because a publisher as the right to sell a book in China doesn’t mean that it has the right to sell that same book in the USA.

It’s not surprising that more publishers would pay for the rights for a book in Chinese in the Chinese market.

This Kindle Store USA storefront recognizes the large number of Chinese readers in the USA, and I think that’s important.

Amazon can both continue to expand to other markets (they just released the Fire tablet in China), and further serve the USA market.

Admittedly, a move like this is a challenge to local Chinese language brick-and-mortar bookstores. They won’t be able to exist just by having books in Chinese, but I don’t think many of them do. Generally, they are destination shops, in some cases with a cultural familiarity, in others, more of a community connection.

This makes the part to thriving for Chinese language bookstores in the USA essentially the same as the path for English language bookstores: make people willing to knowingly spend more money just to support you.

Feel free to tell me and my readers what you think by commenting on this post.

* I am linking to the same thing at the regular Amazon site, and at AmazonSmile. When you shop at AmazonSmile, half a percent of your purchase price on eligible items goes to a non-profit you choose. It will feel just like shopping at Amazon: you’ll be using your same account. The one thing for you that is different is that you pick a non-profit the first time you go (which you can change whenever you want)…and the good feeling you’ll get. Shop ’til you help!

This post by Bufo Calvin originally appeared in the I Love My Kindle blog. To support this or other blogs/organizations, buy Amazon Gift Cards from a link on the site, then use those to buy your items. There will be no cost to you, and a benefit to them.

2 Responses to “Amazon.com’s Chinese storefront”

Just to clarify, Amazon has had a chinese storefront (amazon.cn) for a little over 7 years or so. 🙂 It would probably make more sense to say that this is about Amazon’s *Kindle* Chinese Storefront (or maybe “Amazon’s Chinese Storefront for Kindle Books”… or Amazon’s Chinese Kindle Store. 🙂

Amazon.com is a website/store (as is Amazon.cn, Amazon.co.uk, and so on). It is part of Amazon, the company. All cats are animals, but not all animals are cats. All of the websites are part of Amazon.

The websites are each tied to one store. I’m defining a store in a few ways, but part of it has to do with what they carry.

A storefront is an interface to a store. One store could have several storefronts…Amazon.com does. My local Toys R Us brick and mortar has two storefronts: one for Toys R Us, and one for Kids R Us. There are actually different doors, with different branding. Once you get into the store, though, you can go wherever you want.

So, the point of my headline was that Amazon.com (the USA/unspecified site) now has a storefront (a specialized interface) in Chinese.

I know that’s probably part of me being so close to it: I don’t usually say “Amazon.com” in my headlines, because I’m usually speaking about the company…so I thought that putting “Amazon.com” in the headline would be information rich for most people, but that was pretty presumptuous on my part.

Oh, and you are correct: my story was specifically about Kindle stores, both at Amazon.cn and at Amazon.com.

Thanks for your comment! That prompted me to make this clearer, which is good for my readers. 🙂